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Entertainment Columnists / Jane Stevenson
Lightfoot alive and golden in concert
By JANE STEVENSON, Toronto Sun
Last Updated: March 26, 2010 1:39am
RAMA, Ont. - It didn't take Canadian folk icon Gordon Lightfoot long to joke about last month's highly publicized death hoax as he launched a 15-date spring tour of Canada on Thursday night at Casino Rama.
"Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated," said Lightfoot, 71, about 10 minutes into his 90-minute set.
"That was spoken by Mark Twain in 1897 but you know it was his cousin, not Mark Twain, who died."
This prompted one male fan at the sold-out show to shout out: "How's your cousin?"
Lightfoot, dressed in a striking burgundy velvet waistcoat and backed by his long-time four-piece band, didn't respond.
But he didn't need to.
The singer-songwriter, who normally plays much smaller indoor venues in his nearby native Orillia, Ont., (he's also a longtime regular at the Mariposa Folk Festival), was clearly in control as he made up his set list on the spot and often commented afterwards on each song's performance.
"No lack of energy there," he said following A Painter Passing Through.
Lightfoot, who played three different acoustic guitars, also drew attention to the fact that he had recently been forced to change the live version of one of his best-known songs, The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald.
An upcoming March 31 documentary on the History Channel shows there's no evidence to suggest that the crew's failure to close the hatch covers caused the ship's sinking and that it was a rogue wave instead.
"I'll change the line you probably won't even notice it," said Lightfoot adding: "No more hatch covers."
Thus the line: "At 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in, He said, Fellas it's been good to know ya," became "At 7 p.m., it grew dark, it was then, he said, Fellas it's been good to know ya."
And despite the inclusion of such classics as Carefree Highway, Rainy Day People, Beautiful, Sundown, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, If You Could Read My Mind, and Early Morning Rain, Lightfoot also made fun of his songwriting.
He pointed out he had written a tune "just for kicks" prior to a a gig at the Orillia Opera House.
"It's pretty strange, I gotta warn you right now," said Lightfoot of Couchiching, whose title references nearby Lake Couchiching.
He also recalled that it was during a golf game at the old Couchiching Country Club with his brother-in-law and others that prompted an idea for another song, Baby Step Back.
"The caddy said, 'Okay, boys, either step up or step back," recalled Lightfoot.
And as he introduced Restless, he joked: "Here's a song that goes so deep into nature it was once reviewed in Field and Stream magazine."
Lightfoot, who was in good form throughout the evening of alternately gentle and breezy fold music, even had it in him to provoke an audience clapalong during the opus Don Quixote.
"Gordo rocks," shouted out another male fan as the concert drew to a close.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
RATING: 4 out of 5
Casino Rama-Orillia review-March 25,2010
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